Davis praise for Crawley's progress over recent seasons

Steve Davis has praised the work of Richie Barker and his predecessor Steve Evans in establishing Crawley Town as a really competitive League One side. Crawley dropped out of the play-off places for the first time this season following a surprising 1-0 home defeat to Yeovil Town in mid-week. Barker took over from Sean O’Driscoll on the verge of the season kick-off, after he lured to Nottingham Forest and he has carried on the club’s progress made under Evans. He left for Rotherham at the tail end of last season with Crawley on the brink of automatic promotion.

Steve, who says Crawley play more football under Barker, said: “Crawley have done extremely well over the last few seasons. Steve Evans did a great job getting them out of the conference because that is a tough job and of course, they achieved automatic promotion last season.

“Richie has done well this season and they are competing at the top of the table. They have a large and talented squad and they have changed things around in recent weeks, so they could surprise us with their line-up this weekend.

“Richie has the luxury of doing that and they have been up there because they have good players, but we have good players as well.

   “They play some good football and I envisage a good game of attacking football. They will come to our ground and play and we will have to play well to get a result.”